


Idle Town

by FoxCollector



Series: Les Jeux des Enfants [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Beverly's dad is his own warning, Bullying, Dealing With Loss, Friendship, Gen, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, Pennywise is having the time of his life, Scary clown hijinks again, Unpleasant Implications, author is trying to set up ground work here for later stuff, depressing lonely people, emphasis on friendship despite being apart, everyone is split up, kids dealing with repressed feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25149754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxCollector/pseuds/FoxCollector
Summary: After they split up, they have to deal with things by themselves, but they're never really all that far apart.These are snippets that can stand alone, but which also connect to each other.
Relationships: The Losers Club & The Losers Club (IT)
Series: Les Jeux des Enfants [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1823200
Kudos: 5





	1. Mummy Dearest

**Author's Note:**

> Uhh, so here's another story from me, the person who loves the clown movies. This is part 2 of my It series, the first part being "Cruel Summer" and all of this is slowly leading up to a great big fix-it for Chapter 2. I just really like scary things.
> 
> The title for the series from the Montaigne quote, "Les jeux des enfants ne sont pas des jeux". The title for the fic comes from the song by Conan Gray.
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading <3

If Mrs. Starret tells Ben he should be out with his friends one more time, he’s going to cry. When she told him the same thing a month ago, he didn’t care. It was annoying, but they were empty words. He hadn’t known he was lonely.

But now that he’s had friends – friends that he’d looked forward to seeing every day, now that he knows what it’s like to go out and think, _wow I bet Bill would like this stupid poster_ or _Stan said to try that ice cream_ – now that he knows what it’s like to not be lonely? Well, now he really feels it.

He goes to the library for the familiarity, and to avoid his mother asking when he’s bringing his friends over next.

He doesn’t want to tell anyone that they all got in a stupid fight and hurt each other’s feelings. Or that he doesn’t know if it’s okay to talk to the others; if there’s some dumb code for him to follow about avoiding them or who is supposed to apologize first. They haven’t come to talk to him, so he won’t go to them. Not yet.

Ben thinks he should probably be mad at Bill. He has a dozen reasons to be, after all. And it’s true that he hates that Bill is so set on fighting back against the clown. And, according to all the books and movies he’s been driving himself to distraction with, he should be mad at Bill for taking Bev’s attention. But he isn’t. How could he be, when he wants Beverly to be happy? And Bill clearly makes her happy. Maybe it hurts that her smile isn’t directed at him, but he’s still glad to see her smile and if it’s only at Bill, that’s okay.

And the other thing… Well, he gets it. He knows why Bill wants to fight and he understands what it means, but… if he’s honest with himself, he’s scared. Scared for himself. Scared for Bill, and scared for all the others. Separating himself doesn’t really make it better, he knows that. It’ll probably just make him regret it more if something does happen. And he worries it will. Bev wants to fight too. He admires their bravery and it makes him think about his own reluctance. Is it self-preservation or stubborn cowardice?

He doesn’t want them to get hurt, and it might be selfish to try and distance himself, but he doesn’t know if he could take it if something happened. _Something else_ , he reminds himself. Eddie has already been hurt, and the thought of his broken arm and his tears still makes Ben sick. His own stomach still stings, and he wonders if it will scar.

He figures it’s best to avoid them all, and so he does. He hides in the library.

He’s also hiding from Henry Bowers, because word has it he’s looking to get them back for the Rock War and Ben doesn’t want to know what will happen if any of them are caught alone. At the very least there was safety in numbers.

Ben finds himself staring at the page, listening to the wind rattle at the windows outside. He’s not really reading anymore. He has _A History of Derry_ open in front of him, more for a placeholder than anything. He’d pulled it open with some half-formed thought of gathering more information, for reasons he doesn’t care to look too closely at, but he finds he can’t stomach it now. Reading about all the death and missing children in Derry leaves him with a bad aftertaste that sticks to the back of his throat. It used to just be numbers, information for him to swallow, meaningless in that abstract way. But now that he’s seen _It_ , he knows what’s behind the pages, and now he can feel Its influence pressing heavy on the history of the town.

Now, when he reads about the history of Derry, he knows he’s reading the _History of It_ – _Abridged_.

He gives up and shuts the book, preparing to leave. It’s getting late now, and he should probably leave before the sun sets. He’s been trying to avoid being outside after dark as much as possible. And so far, that’s served him well.

The cuts on his stomach itch as he stands on tiptoes to slide the book back into its place on the shelf, and he’s reminded again of all the things that could happen if he’s caught alone. There’s an H on one side, and long scratches on the other. If they both scar then he’s going to look pretty hardcore in a few years. He hopes.

He looks out the windows before he leaves the library, checking for any signs of Henry Bowers or his goons, and then checks out a few books on Ancient Egypt and Mummies. At least those are safe topics.

He slips out into the darkening evening and hugs the straps of his backpack to his chest. Another day down. Tomorrow he will have to go to summer school again. He hates it, but he needs to make up for the time he missed before he and his mother moved to town partway through the school year. At least it fills his days with something, now that he has nothing else to do.

The wind hits him hard in the face when he steps out into the open yard, and he squints against it. The area is blissfully empty, but he checks around the war memorial just to be sure. There is no sign of Bowers, and no one else around. He breathes a sigh of relief and starts towards home.

By now his mother will be making dinner. She’d promised him a cheesy meatloaf with mashed potatoes and he’s looking forward to that at least. And then he’ll read his new books at his desk in his room and wait for sleep to take him. He’s been keeping the light on at night. Sometimes the darkness in his room seems to deepen and it reminds him too much of the bunker in the woods and then he starts to feel claustrophobic and fear builds in his chest.

_We were all together when we hurt It_ , Beverly had said.

And he thinks about that sometimes, when he’s supposed to be sleeping. He believes it, and on some level, he knows it’s true. But at night, in the dark, it doesn’t help. Because then he thinks, _but I’m alone right now, and I can’t hurt It. I’m alone and no one will come to help me, my mother can’t and she won’t know until she wakes up in the morning and I’m gone._ And his eyes fill with tears, and he keeps the light on, just in case.

He quickens his pace a little, but it feels as though the wind is working against him and actively pushing him back with every step he takes. He hates wind like this. It’s bitter and spiteful and more suited to winter.

He passes by the Synagogue and it makes him think about Stanley. Is he still supposed to go to his Bar Mitzvah? Should he go or would Stan not want him there? Would he be turned away at the door? He doesn’t even remember when it’s supposed to be, and he feels bad about that. But he’d been counting on being reminded by the others. All the same, he hopes it goes well. Or that it went well. Or whatever. He hopes he’s allowed to think that.

He doesn’t know how stuff like this is supposed to work, and he just wants everything to be okay again so he doesn’t have to worry about it anymore.

He’s a little slower than usual, lost in his thoughts, and maybe that’s why it happens.

It’s not long after he’s turned off down his new usual street that he spots the man out of the corner of his eye, standing on the street corner.

He likes this street. He has never once run into Henry Bowers here, and it’s bright, lined by old houses along one side, and a park on the other. The yards are spacious and green, and the whole street slants gently toward the wide open park with its sidewalk drain. The old man in the corner house always gives him a nod, and the little girl with the scarred face who plays there is happy share her snacks with Ben.

This street has always been safe. He’s hidden from Bowers in that park and made it away every time, and once the older man let him hide out on his porch.

But neither the old man or the little girl are out today, most likely they are eating dinner now, like he should be. It makes him feel a little isolated. There are no friendly faces here for him today.

But he isn’t alone, he realizes. There’s a figure across the street. Most likely the same man he saw standing at the corner but…

Ben stops and turns, because for half a moment something seemed off.

It’s a tall man in dark clothes, turned away from him, just across the road. Nothing wrong there.

Ben keeps walking, and the man stays in the corner of his eye, perfectly and impossibly.

He looks again, and the man is still there, doing the same thing, which is nothing at all really, but he’s in the same relative position to Ben, as though he’s glided up to stand next to the mailbox on the other side of the road. He has to have glided because Ben never saw him move. It’s uncanny.

Ben looks away.

No. He shakes his head. Don’t be silly, this is nothing. _I’m in the middle of the street, stuff doesn’t happen in the streets like this_.

He faces forward and walks faster.

Out of the corner of his eye he can see the man is facing him now, watching him, and still in that same relative position.

He takes a deep breath and turns to face him.

There’s something wrong with the man’s face. Even from across the street Ben can tell.

The face is thin, sunken, and oddly shaped, like the man has no cheeks. It’s skull-like, really, and dark like a thick coat of dust has been laid down on top of it. Ben can’t see the whites of the eyes at all, but he still feels like he’s being watched. Thin stringy hair blows in the hard wind, and bits of something that look like matted chunks of skin break off and tumble away.

He frowns. He’s seen this man before, he’s sure of it.

Where – oh.

He thinks about the book nestled safe in his backpack.

_Egyptian Mummies_.

A mummy?

No sooner does he think it then the mummy raises a skeletal hand and waves at him. Ben balks at that. It’s an out of place gesture.

Ben looks up the street but there’s no one in either direction.

_Just ignore it_ , he tells himself. _It’s not real_.

He makes himself turn away and keep walking. Maybe if he pretends it isn’t real then it will just go away.

It’s still there.

A flash of colour catches his eye, and when he turns he sees there are orange pom-pom buttons down the mummy’s sunken chest, like it can open its rib cage and expose the emptiness within. It’s holding a balloon in one hand now, and the balloon, in defiance of all logic, leans into wind as hard as if it were caught in an opposing current.

“Don’t you want a balloon?” The mummy asks. The voice sounds rusted from disuse, but Ben knows that voice now.

Pennywise. It.

Now he does start running.

A violent popping noise stops him short, and he turns back before he can stop himself.

There’s nothing there.

Ben turns around again, and barely has time to note that there is something crawling up from the park before something sharp pierces his ankle and tugs.

He hits the ground hard and comes face to face with rot.

“Where you goin’?” The mummy asks, shriveled cheeks hollowing with the motion of its mouth.

Ben yells, loud in the evening air, and turns, trying to squirm away. Someone will hear him, they have to.

He kicks out. Sharp nails dig into his skin and it burns. He can’t pull his leg from the grip, despite how brittle the fingers look, and slowly he feels himself being dragged into the grass.

“Go on,” the thing behind him croons. “Call for help. No one will come. Nobody wants to help the fat boy.”

Ben glances around wildly. There’s no one here at all, windows are shuttered and gates are closed. All of the lights in the corner house are off. Somehow it makes him feel worse than if he were alone in the dark. Where is everyone?

“Help?” He yells, and it sounds more like a question than a plea.

There is silence all around.

Ben digs his fingers into the cracks in the sidewalk and tries to pull himself forward as the other hand grabs his other leg.

It laughs from behind. “You’re alllll alone.”

And he is, he realizes. No one is coming. No one will come.

For half a second, he feels like giving up. Why fight it alone? And then he thinks about his friends. He’s alone because he walked away too. And if this is happening to him, who’s to say his friends aren’t in trouble too? Or maybe something has already happened to one or all of them. Maybe he’s managed to lose them forever already. He hates that thought.

He kicks out again, and this time when he does, he hits something with his foot. There’s a loud crack, and his foot sinks inside something slightly wet.

He has the sudden blinding thought that teeth will close around his foot and it makes panic rise in his chest. He pulls hard, and it feels like he can’t possibly get away even as his foot slips free from the sticky wetness. The grip on his ankle loosens and he scrambles, rubbing his knees and arms raw on the cement. It’s just enough that he’s able to jerk himself free. He hauls himself up, unsteady, and staggers forward. He’s not that far from home, he can make it if he’s fast.

Behind him, there is a dragging sound, and he knows if he looks back he will see the mummy crawling after him. It’s fast, faster than he is, and he knows he won’t make it. It has to be right at his heels, it has to be. He’s going to die in the middle of the streets and no one is going to help him and no one is going to know and –

He barrels into someone coming around the corner and they both tumble to the ground.

“What the fuck?” the other person says, and shoves Ben off of where he’s landed.

Ben looks back, certain that Pennywise will be _right there_ , but he isn’t. He’s gone.

He turns to see his would-be rescuer and finds Richie Tozier sitting on the ground, reaching for his glasses where Ben knocked them off.

“Sorry Richie,” Ben says. He picks up Richie’s glasses and hands them back.

“Ben?” Richie shoves his glasses back on and blinks like he needs to confirm it really is Ben.

“Yeah. Sorry,” Ben says again.

“What the fuck, man, you just ran right over me.” Richie climbs to his feet, brushing dirt off his jeans.

“I know. I didn’t mean to, I was just…” He trails off. He stays half-crouched on the ground where he fell.

“Just what? Spit it out,” Richie says.

“Running,” Ben says. “From a mummy.”

Richie stares down at him for a moment, then extends a hand to help Ben up. Ben takes it gratefully.

“Was it Eddie’s mummy? Because I’d run away from her too,” Richie says, and Ben recognizes it as an attempt to lighten the mood. Ben isn’t Eddie though, and he doesn’t know how to react to that.

“Uh.”

“Sorry, old habits.” Richie shrugs. “Where you running to?”

“Just home. You?” Ben asks. He’s kind of hoping they’re heading in the same direction for a bit.

“Going to see Stan. His Bar Mitzvah was yesterday,” Richie says. There’s something accusatory in his voice and Ben knows he deserves it.

“Oh. Did it …go okay?” Ben asks. He looks at the ground like it can make him feel less guilty.

He’d missed it. He really missed his friend’s Bar Mitzvah. He knew how important it was to Stan and he missed it. Some friend he was.

Richie shrugs. “Sure.” His face softens a bit. “He kicked the Torah’s ass.”

Ben doesn’t think that’s how a Bar Mitzvah works, but he’s not going to say that right now.

“Cool,” he says. “I knew he would.”

They stand awkwardly for a moment. Ben doesn’t know if he’s allowed to say anything else. He wants to say, _say hi to Stan for me! Maybe we can all hang out this week_.

“I gotta go,” Richie says. He gives Ben an awkward kind of wave and starts down the street towards Stan’s house. After a moment he stops and turns back. “Take care of yourself, Haystack.”

“You – you too,” Ben says, stumbling over his words like Bill.

He feels a little safer going home with that. It feels weirdly like Richie has given him some form of protection to get him home safe.

He knows it won’t last, when the sun creeps all the way down he’ll still be alone with nothing to look forward to tomorrow. He doesn’t think he wants to read his book on mummies tonight. He’s had enough experience with them for now.

And above it all, he just feels bad. He let his friends down. If he missed Stan’s Bar Mitzvah then he missed his birthday too, and he’s pretty sure that puts him in the bad friend book. What are they even still mad about? He just wants to go and apologize and hug them. No more demon clown. No more missing kids. He just wants to spend time with the people he cares about.

Ben has never felt so lonely, and that night when he can’t sleep it’s not because he’s afraid.


	2. Truth or Dare

Nobody likes to play Truth or Dare with Richie. Probably because he always asks the most embarrassing questions and picks the grossest dares, but he still likes to think it’s because they’re all a bunch of wusses. It not his fault Mike declined to answer if he’d ever tickled his pickle before, or that Bill refused to run naked through the school.

They’re babies. Richie has stuffed his mouth with garbage on a dare, to become a literal trashmouth, and he’s truthfully answered that he doesn’t have a crush on Beverly. Although she is really pretty. Stan the Man is okay though. Stan once licked Eddie’s face on a dare, after much reassuring between both parties that Stan’s mouth was clean and Eddie had washed his face, but he’d still done it.

There’s only one question Richie hasn’t answered. Well, two. And they’re related.

Who do you have a crush on?

What are you afraid of?

The answer to both questions is _Eddie Kaspbrak_.

Although it’s maybe a bit more complicated. It's not that he's afraid of Eddie's toothpick arms, it's more that he's afraid of what would happen if Eddie found out, if -

He tries not to think too hard about the details.

He’ll do anything to keep it secret. But at least he can admit it to himself now. He’s gone ahead and carved their initials on the kissing bridge, and that’s proof enough for him, even though they’ve never really kissed. But that was for himself. It doesn’t mean he wants everyone else to know. He doesn’t know what he would do if they knew.

Not that it matters. Right now Richie is in the metaphorical doghouse with most people. And that’s fair. He’s mad too. The only people he actually wants to see are Stan and Eddie. And maybe Ben. Or Mike? At the very least, Stan is his best friend, and he’ll be there for his Bar Mitzvah if it kills him. Eddie is stuck in Mommy-jail, and won’t be out until he’s 40, so Richie has made plans to sneak in for a visit one day. Ben and Mike? Well, they sided with Richie so they’re okay. Even though Ben lives in the library again and Mike hardly comes into town anymore.

The fact of the matter is that now Richie is alone.

The sun is setting, and he’s taking the long way home, trying to avoid the Paul Bunyan statue as much as possible. Just in case. It means he takes more side streets and runs the risk of running into Henry Bowers, but it’s one he’s willing to take at the moment. Bowers can’t squish him like a bug. Well, not as easily at least.

Still, he knows there’s something wrong when he turns down Jackson street and it’s dark and empty. It feels isolated and claustrophobic in a way he can’t describe. The houses lean in on either side, and Richie wonders how it’s possible that not a single one has their lights on. It just seems wrong. _Off_ in a way that’s starting to become all too familiar.

He picks up the pace and rounds the corner. He’s nearly home, is really only about two blocks away now, when he spots Belch’s blue car on the side of the street. He freezes. The car appears to be empty; Belch and Victor are leaning against one side, apparently talking about something.

He doesn’t see Henry anywhere.

Not good.

He ducks his head and turns down the back alley. There’s no noise, no yelling, and no screeching tires, which means he’s made it, unless they’re trying to be sneaky, but the Bowers gang has always favoured terror tactics over stealth.

Richie walks as fast as he can while trying to keep a low profile, but the alley is darker than the street and he falters. _Come on, it’s not that much farther_. Better to be a little freaked than deal with the Bowers Gang. They’ve been looking for revenge for the Rock War and Richie does NOT want to run into them alone. He’s pretty sure murder is a new menu option for Henry.

He’s halfway down the alley when something stumbles out from between two houses, knocking over a garbage can as it sprawls to the ground.

It’s a person, and Richie’s first thought is _oh god, not Henry Bowers_. They’re the right height more or less, or could be if they were standing up, and Richie can tell it’s a guy. Definitely older than him too. Except that then the figure stands up and up and oh, too tall to be Henry. He supposes the fact that this guy has one of those letterman jackets like he sees football players wear on TV should have tipped him off. Too old to be Henry. And huh, he didn’t know their school had those jackets.

The man stumbles again, one hand to his chest like he’s in pain, and for a second Richie doesn’t know what to do. Does he help him? What if the guy’s just tripping balls on some weird drug and he’ll just attack Richie when he gets too close?

Before he can decide what to do, the man straightens up, and looks at him. And then Richie sees _him_. He’s not a man, not right now, his face is covered in fur, and his eyes are round yellow moons in his face and when he opens his mouth it exposes long and sharp teeth.

Richie knows what he is. _Werewolf_. Like that movie that he’d thought was so dumb right up until he’d thought about it too hard.

But…Werewolves aren’t real.

The werewolf lurches forward, lunges, and Richie reacts too slow, it snags the hem of his shirt with claws that he didn’t see coming and it growls.

“What the fuck,” is all Richie manages to say, and then he trips backwards and the bottom of his shirt rips in its hands.

It’s tall. So tall, and it looks like it could be anyone he knows. Blue jeans, white shirt, _Derry High_ jacket with the last name embroidered on the chest –

He blinks.

No.

That’s –

That’s _his_ last name. In gold bright letters over the heart, is the name _Tozier_.

Richie shuffles backwards, awkwardly standing as his feet try to go in every other direction.

This isn’t happening. There’s no way.

No. Way.

“You’re not real!” He tells the werewolf. It has to be that stupid clown again.

But that doesn’t really make it better. And it doesn’t actually stop it either, because it starts towards him and then Richie has to run or else be caught by it and that really doesn’t seem like a good idea.

So he runs, out of the alley, around the corner back the way he came.

And all the way there’s a heavy pounding in his head and the air is thick with a sound like snarling, and he makes himself run faster.

_It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real._

He loses track of where he’s going, and it’s only when he’s about three thousand streets down that he realizes that he might have accidentally gotten Belch and Victor’s attention.

He takes a sharp turn into a familiar alley and stops.

There’s nothing. No more pounding footsteps and heavy snarls. No car engine or loud yelling.

Oh, okay.

He’s fine then?

Wow, well, that was easy.

He turns around and –

“Beep beep Richie.” Pennywise is right there.

He yells, breathless and falls back a few steps.

“Metaphor a little too much for ya?” Pennywise says. “How about this: don’t touch the other boys or you’ll make them sick too.”

The clown reaches for him and its arms are so long, so impossibly long he thinks he won’t ever be able to get away and then –

“Richie?” Beverly’s voice.

He turns to see her at the entryway of the alley. When he looks back Pennywise is gone.

He realizes then that this alley is her back alley, and that’s why it seemed so familiar. He’s run a lot farther than he thought, apparently.

“What?” He pushes his glasses up his nose like he wasn’t on the verge of death and tears a moment ago.

“Are you… okay? I thought I heard…” She’s awkward, and Richie doesn’t blame her. He’s not sure where he’s supposed to stand with her right now.

“I’m fine. It was just… Bowers.” Yeah, that’s a good cover. He was hiding from Bowers when he got into that situation anyway.

Her expression softens. “Oh. Well, you can hide out here as long you want. I’d ask you to come upstairs but…”

She doesn’t have to finish the sentence.

“No it’s cool. I think he’s probably gone by now, he probably forgot about me already.” Richie tries to nonchalantly saunter out of the alley, but his legs are shaking a bit.

“Okay,” Bev says. She meets his eyes and it looks like she wants to say something else, but she can’t work up the nerve.

For the first time he notices that her eyes are red rimmed, and one of her cheeks is a bright red. When she lifts her cigarette to her mouth, she’s shaking a little too.

“Are _you_ okay?” he asks. There are a dozen questions he wants to ask her. _What happened to your face? Do you need help?_

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she shoots back.

Richie shrugs. So they’ll both just keep their secrets then.

She holds out her cigarette for him, and after a moment’s consideration he takes it, draws smoke into his lungs and breaths it out like maybe he can exorcise himself. He passes it back.

“Hey do you –” Richie starts and then stops. He tells himself he doesn’t know how he wanted to finish that sentence, but he knows well enough. Even if he doesn’t know how exactly to put to words the question weighted heavy at the back of his skull.

_Do you know?_

“Nevermind,” he says. Then, “smell ya later.” He’s aiming for light and funny but it sounds fake.

Beverly snorts. Probably for the wrong reasons. “Sure, Richie. Take care of yourself.”

He doesn’t answer her, and he takes the long way home again. This time he wanders past the synagogue just to see the lights on on the top floor so he knows that Stan is there. And then he wanders dangerously close to Eddie’s house and lets himself look up at the room he knows is Eddie’s. The light is off, but the living room light on the first floor is on, and that means Eddie is stuck watching TV with his mother.

And he finds himself thinking, _what the hell was that supposed to mean?_ If Pennywise was trying to call him a werewolf, that’s dumb. Sure, that movie freaked him out a bit for reasons he hadn’t thought too hard about, and sure werewolves are creepy. Scary even. But they aren’t real, and Richie isn’t one.

But his name on the jacket bothers him.

_Don’t touch the other boys, or you’ll make them sick too_.

No.

No, he’s not. And he’s not a monster.

But sometimes he thinks he has one buried deep.

He worries sometimes what keeping his secret will turn him into. But not as much as he worries about what will happen if people found out. Sometimes it comes out in tiny touches and long glances and he can’t help it, but he worries they know.

That Eddie knows.

It feels like a sickness in his head and it makes guilt take root deep in his chest. It feels like someone somewhere infected him with this, with these _feelings_ , and he’s just going to spread his disease or his curse or whatever it is around until they’re all sick. All his friends. Everyone.

Sick and dirty.

And he wants that, deep down. He wants to touch Eddie with his dirty hands and he wants him to be sick too. He wants Eddie to be just like him.

But he knows how much Eddie hates sickness. Hates being dirty.

And he’s afraid of hurting him. The idea that he could do something that would hurt his friend tears at him, and he hates that he can somehow _want_ to hurt Eddie in that way.

Maybe… maybe he _is_ a monster.

_So_ , he thinks to himself, _truth or dare_.

Truth.

_How much do you like Eddie?_

No. Dare _._

_Get over it. Dare you, dare you, double dare you. Lock it up and keep it there._

When he finally makes it home he goes right to bed, and for the first time in a long, long time, he cries himself to sleep and doesn’t dream of anything at all.


	3. Abstract Daddy

Beverly hangs up the phone, a pit in her stomach. She can see the kit on the table and she wonders how her father could possibly have forgotten it. Part of her thinks he left it behind on purpose.

She was looking forward to having the day to herself, her father’s shift is long today, but now she has to go down and see him. She has to, she knows, but she hates the thought. She doesn’t want to see him right now.

All the way down the stairs she carries the kit away from her body, letting it dangle awkwardly from the end of her arm. She slides it on the handlebars of her bike and heads down to the hospital.

She should have known better than to hope that her father would be waiting outside for her, so that she could simply give him his kit and leave. There’s no one outside, and when she approaches reception, the woman there tells her that her father is expecting her and to go down to the maintenance room at the end of the hall on the left.

The receptionist has a fixed smile when she says this, fixed and fake.

Beverly sighs and starts down the hall.

The hospital is quiet today. There are no running doctors and no voices yelling on the intercom and no screaming.

She’s been here before, although it’s been a while now. She still hates the smell of it, and the whiteness of the building. It makes her think of something hiding behind the façade.

Entering the Maintenance room is no better. It’s darker, and the walls are not white, because no patient was ever intended to see it. It’s not meant to be a safe space. This room is gray and feels unfinished. It’s a large space made small and cramped by the half wall dividing the generators from rows of shelves and a few old tables covered in equipment.

“Daddy?” she calls out softly. There are a million things she would rather be doing, a million places she’d rather be.

There’s no answer.

She glances over at the tables, maybe she can just leave it here, and explain later that she couldn’t find him.

Beverly sets the old kit down on the closest table, and there’s a metal clunk of shifting gears that echoes around the room. She doesn’t like the way that sounded.

And suddenly she doesn’t want to be alone in here. Where is everybody, anyway? Where’s Mr. Goldfarb or Mr. Palmer?

She clears her throat. “Hello?” she calls a little louder.

“Bevvie.” Her father’s voice startles her and she jumps, just a little. His voice comes from behind her, and she guesses he must have been working on something else.

“What took you so long, girl?” He asks.

“I came right here, Daddy. I just couldn’t find you,” she says. She keeps her eyes down, she already knows that he’s smiling.

“That’s my good girl.” He places his hand on top of hers on the kit. Then he shifts, like changing gears. “There’s a pipe busted up in the children’s ward. Goddamn sewer water everywhere.”

Beverly just nods.

“You run on home then. Right home, you hear me?” he says. He lifts up her chin so she’s forced to look him in the eyes.

“Yes, Daddy,” she says.

He slides the kit away from her and gestures her towards the door. She obeys, slipping out ahead of him and hurrying down the hall. Her hand feels like it’s burning where he touched her and her chin tingles. It feels dirty, and she’s filled with the need to scrub it off of her somehow.

She ducks in to the visitor’s bathroom, locking the door behind her. She runs cold and then hot water over her hand, scrubbing it with soap until the feeling goes away. And then she does the same thing to her face. She’s not crying, but it’s close.

She watches her face in the mirror, raw and red, wondering _why_ or if it’s her or if she’s done something to deserve this.

There’s a gurgling from behind her.

She looks at the sink anyway, imagining a bubble swelling from the drain, blood spewing from the small dark hole. But it’s still pristine white. Then she catches the reflection of the toilet in the mirror. It’s full to the brim with dark water. She wrinkles her nose and suddenly hopes that she hasn’t somehow messed up the piping by running water here when there was a busted pipe in the building.

If she just slips away, no one will know it was her anyway. Her father will be too busy, and the receptionist probably wouldn’t even notice if Beverly set her hair on fire.

She turns to head for the door and there’s a gulping noise and a bubbling. She turns to look against her better judgment.

A hand reaches up to grasp at the toilet seat, then another, as something large and misshapen pulls itself out as though the toilet were a deep well and not a small bowl.

Beverly’s breath catches and she hurries to the door. She clicks the lock over and pulls, but the door won’t open.

She looks back and the thing is almost all the way out. It’s grayish brown and wet, the colour of dirty water, and it’s hunched oddly, bent almost in half. Its features are indistinct, and it gives Beverly the odd impression that it’s covered up somehow, like a sheet has been cast over it so she can’t see what’s happening.

When it moves forward again, it’s with an odd jerking motion that makes her feel sick.

She feels panic rise in her throat and she has to stop. Make herself breathe. She knows what this is. She’s hurt It before, she can do it again. She just has to stay calm.

But it reminds her of –

“Are you still my little girl?” It asks in her father’s voice. Or, her father’s voice if he were drowning, at least.

“No,” she says quietly. And she can feel control threatening to slip away.

The sound of Its breathing is ragged and hitched. Her face flushes with panic and something like shame. She hates the way it sounds, and the way it moves.

She wishes the others were here. It was easier to be brave when she was helping them. It was easier to protect Bill and Eddie and Richie when they needed it. She has no weapons now. And she’s alone.

No one would come looking for her.

No, that’s not true.

Daddy would. And she doesn’t want that at all.

The thing is fully out now, and in the small space of the bathroom it seems so close to her.

She takes a deep breath. Her friends would look for her, she tells herself. They would be too late, but they would come. She pushes her fear back down, even as It takes another of those odd thrusting steps.

The light flickers above her.

She turns her back on it, acutely aware of Its closeness, and squeezes her eyes shut.

She’s going to open the door and walk out of here. That’s it. She can do it. She’s going to walk right out of here, and then she’s going to call every one of the boys just because she can, and she’s going to ask them to hang out.

She pulls hard, and the door sticks, and then slams open so hard she stumbles back and feels hands close on her waist. The spike of terror is equal to that of relief as she uses the door to pull her way out into the hall, and she feels the hands slip off of her.

The hall is still empty. There’s no one even here. Still, there’s a gurgling coming from the bathroom behind her and she turns to watch, even though it looks fine now. The toilet isn’t flooded, and the light only flickers a little. The door swings shut as she backs away, right into someone else. They yelp, and Beverly turns around quickly.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, and then she sees who it is.

Eddie Kaspbrak blinks up at her.

For a moment they both stare at each other, and Beverly has the strangest feeling that Eddie is doing the same mental gear-switch as she is.

Eddie looks washed out in the hospital lights, it makes him look small, and it doesn’t help that he has one arm wrapped in a thick cast and held tight to his chest.

“Hi,” he says finally.

“Hey. Sorry I walked into you, I was…” she looks over her shoulder at the now shut bathroom door. “Nevermind.”

Eddie frowns, clearly confused. “You were what?”

“It’s nothing,” Beverly says. “Just. I saw something. Again.”

“In there?” Eddie asks, voice low like they’re telling secrets. He looks around her at the door like it might open on its own.

Who knows, maybe it would.

“Yeah,” Beverly says. “I – I would stay out of there if I were you.”

He nods, mildly distracted. “Bathrooms are where most accidents –”

“I know,” she says.

“And a _hospital_ bathroom probably has bacteria from all kinds of sick people. Like measles, or chicken pox, or, or leprosy –” Eddie says.

“That’s not really what I’m worried about,” she says. He’s probably just trying to distract her, but it doesn’t really help. “What are you doing here?”

He holds up his cast.

“Oh, right. How, um, how is it?” She asks, a little guilty. She hasn’t seen him since his mother packed him away in the car and told her to leave him alone. She glances up the hall briefly. Maybe his mother is here too.

“It doesn’t hurt that much anymore,” Eddie says. “But I have to keep it clean. And I have to get X-rays. To make sure it heals properly, because if it doesn’t then they might have to re-break it and…” he falters. “That would be bad.”

“Yeah, it would,” Beverly says. “Is your mom here with you?”

Eddie frowns again and nods. “She’s talking to the doctor.” He rubs at his cast. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“Just dropping something off for my dad,” she says. “He works here.”

“Oh.” Eddie looks around, as though expecting Beverly’s father to appear out of nowhere.

There’s the sound of voices approaching, and Eddie tenses up.

“Um, you should…” he trails off.

She knows what he means though. If his mom sees her talking to him then they’ll both be in trouble. She imagines what would happen if Eddie’s mother met her father. It would be bad. Ugly.

Neither of them would want that.

“Sure, yeah,” she says. She wraps her arms around herself, and notices when Eddie mirrors her.

“It’s not – I don’t think that _you_ – but my mom, she thinks that –” Eddie trips over his words.

“I know,” she says, and hesitates. “My dad’s like that too.”

Eddie breaths out. “Okay. Um, see you?”

“Yeah, I hope so,” she says. “Hang tough, Eds.” She doesn’t usually call him that, but this time it feels appropriate, and the smile she gets in return makes her feel better.

Even if she has to slip away like a thief.

Sometimes she thinks there’s a strange kind of kinship between them, even though they don’t have all that much to say to one another. She has the feeling they understand each other in a way the others don’t. She recognizes bits of herself in the ways he makes himself small, and it makes her uncomfortable. It makes her want to protect him in the way she couldn’t protect herself.

It makes her think about her father, and she feels a surge of hate at the way he has the power to make her feel so small. She thinks about the way that thing had moved. It reminds her of the way he moves when it’s late at night. She shoves the thoughts down to the bottom of her spine.

_You go right home_ , her father had said.

She wants to spite him. Maybe she should stop in at the store. Or get ice cream. It is a nice day after all.

And she does. She stops to get herself ice cream on the way home, and doesn’t regret it until she’s almost all the way back. Then she thinks about how short the rest of the day is, and how it’s all gone now, and her father will be home before she knows it.

She feels the wind on her skin and it makes her prickle with something like self-consciousness, as if she were somehow exposed. She hunches her shoulders and suddenly she just wants to be inside and alone.

But she hates that she feels guilty. That he can still make her feel that way when she has finally found people that make her feel good about herself. It makes her hate her father even more. She can admit to herself that he scares her more than that clown ever could.

And the scariest thing is that she has nowhere else to go but home, to wait for him.


	4. See You In Your Dreams

Eddie is miserable. He’s been cooped up inside almost every day and forced to watch nothing but the news or his mother’s soap operas. His mother always makes him elevate his arm when they’re watching TV, even though the doctor says he doesn’t need to do that anymore. He thinks he’s going to go crazy.

He hasn’t seen any of his friends for a week.

Richie had snuck in once, coming in through the window like a bandit, or a prince; and Bill has tried to come over twice, only to get turned away at the door. Stan brought him flowers, but his mother had thrown them out as soon as she’d shut the door. _They’re bad for your allergies_ , she’d said.

He feels trapped, and claustrophobic. His only breaks are when he needs to go for refills, or when he needs to go to the doctor and get his cast checked on.

The worst part of all is that he can’t get his cast wet. Which means he needs help to have a bath, and he _hates_ it. It’s humiliating. He’s almost 13 years old and he still needs his mother’s help. He feels wretched about it all, and dirty. And despite all the extra care he takes to stay as clean as possible, the feeling doesn’t go away.

And because he’s been so sullen lately his mother has determined that he’s sick again, and when they were last at the doctors, she’d gotten Eddie a prescription for something he can’t pronounce.

Now he’s on his way to pick it up. Funny how he’s too sick to leave the house until she needs him to get something for her. After all, Eddie Bear, it’s only down to the pharmacy and back.

It’s a nice enough day outside, and Eddie decides to walk instead of bike, which is just as well because it’s a little difficult for him to bike with only one arm.

He’s almost to the pharmacy when he hears them.

“Hey, what the fuck?”

Oh no. Henry Bowers.

He spots them across the street. Henry and Belch and Victor Criss. Eddie looks around, just to be sure Henry is talking to him and, oh, damn. He is.

“Hey!” Henry yells.

Eddie steps back, and then turns to run. _You’re not supposed to run from predators_ , his mind unhelpfully informs him. He doesn’t listen to it, because if he doesn’t run Henry will catch him and then –

“Hey faggot!” Henry yells. “Get back here!”

He hears Henry start running after him.

“Not so tough without your friends, huh? I’m gonna fucking kill you for that rock fight, get back here!” Henry yells.

“Henry!” That’s Belch’s voice, out of breath and sounding alarmingly close. “His arm’s already fucking broken, man!”

“I’ll fucking break his other arm then!” Henry yells.

“Just, just wait, man – I’ll get my car,” Belch says.

Oh great.

“Keep running!” Victor yells after him. And it might be meant as a taunt but it’s damn sound advice.

Eddie does. All the way down to the Kissing Bridge, until he’s sweaty and he can’t breathe. He throws himself behind the barrier, just over the side and out of sight of the road. He debates climbing down into the Barrens, but it’s steep and he doesn’t want to fall. It doesn’t help that he can’t breathe and he’s panicking. There’s no way he can keep running. He sticks up close to the side, hoping they go right past. He’s sure he’d be screwed if they were to look over the side.

Ironically, the delay it took for Belch to get his car gave Eddie a good start, and he’s glad for it.

He hears the car coming up fast, and then it slows down, and Eddie thinks _fuck, I’m dead_. He holds his breath and tries to be quiet.

“Where the fuck did he go?” Henry’s voice is loud in the summer air.

“I don’t know,” Belch says.

“Fucking look, then!”

There’s slamming and scuffling, and Eddie can already see his life flashing before his eyes, there’s a lot he never got to do. He’s never even kissed anyone. But now Henry is going to break his other arm, and then maybe his neck.

Victor Criss looks over the side and Eddie freezes. And he stupidly thinks that he finally understands why a deer freezes in the headlights.

“He’s fucking gone, man,” Victor says. He’s looking right at Eddie. “He must have fucked off into the Barrens.”

Victor disappears.

“Man, fuck this,” Belch says.

“Why don’t we go sneak in to that R-rated movie?” Victor says. “Fucking dweeb will probably scare himself half to death anyway.”

“I’m gonna fucking kill his ass. And all the rest of them!” There’s a loud bang.

“Henry!” Belch sounds startled.

“Let’s fucking go,” Henry says.

The car engine revs, and then fades away. Eddie stays put long after it’s gone.

What the fuck was that? It had to be a prank of some kind, and they’re going to come back for him and Victor is going to laugh at him while Henry breaks his other arm. Laugh at him for believing that he would even think about helping him out. There’s no way the other boy didn’t see him.

Eddie draws a shuddering breath and feels his throat closing. He pulls out his inhaler and takes a few deep pulls, taking a moment to assess his situation. He’s sweaty and covered in dirt, and the grass makes his legs itchy. The ground beneath him is steep, and if he moves wrong he’s pretty sure he’s going to fall straight down into the Barrens. He’s tired, and his heart is still beating a mile a minute.

He stands slowly, trying not to lose his balance, and climbs slowly back up onto the road, looking up and down in each direction.

Nothing. But he’s still shaking, can’t help it. He tries a few steady breaths.

He looks again, just in case, half expecting to see the car coming back around at 100 miles an hour to flatten him. This time as he’s scanning the bridge, eyes skipping over hearts and names – _T + R, Phil + Sara, Lola_ in a jagged heart – there along the wooden paneling, he sees it.

His eyes catch on the carving, and his face heats up for no reason he can find.

It’s not about him, but for a moment, his mind filled in the gaps and he _wanted_ it to be about him. Him and –

_R + E_.

Stupid. It’s someone else, and the fact that he wants _that_ –

It’s a bit too much. Angry tears well up in his eyes, and he kicks the railing as though that will do any good.

There’s a slithering through the grass.

He stumbles back, ready to run again, when he spots a man climbing up the bank. He breathes a sigh of relief. Not Henry.

The man pauses when he sees him.

“Hey kid, you okay?” he asks. He’s wearing a fanny pack like Eddie’s own, and a baseball cap. He looks like a tourist from the TV.

“Yeah,” Eddie says. It’s a lie, and he knows he looks like as much of a mess as he feels. He’s gross and sweaty and there’s dirt on his knees and his face must be red and streaked with tears and he’s scared and his heart aches so bad he wants to curl up and die.

“Can you help me out?” the man asks. “I think I’m a little lost. I’m looking for the Kissing Bridge? I’m supposed to meet my boyfriend there?”

Eddie’s heart skips a beat. _Boyfriend_. His mother probably wouldn’t want him to talk to this man. She’d tell him he might catch something. He could have AIDS, gay cancer.

But –

He kind of likes that word. _Boyfriend_. He has plenty of friends who are boys. He’s never met one of them on the Kissing Bridge. He’s never been kissed, either.

“This is the Kissing Bridge,” Eddie says. He looks up and down the road again, this time looking for anyone that might be waiting for the man. There’s no one.

“Oh good!” The man says. There’s something like a large boil on one cheek. “I was really starting to think I was going to be lost down there forever.”

The man hops over the railing that Eddie had struggled to climb around, and there’s a wet noise. His hand leaves a mark on the wood.

“I don’t think there’s anyone here,” Eddie tells the man. He wants to say _sorry_. Or _I hope your boyfriend comes soon_ , but he doesn’t.

“Well, that’s just like him to be late.” The man sighs. His nose slides off, leaving a pinkish trail of blood and puckered edges around the rapidly rotting hole on his face.

Eddie makes a small choking noise.

It would be funny if it weren’t so disgusting.

“Oh wow,” the man says. “I’m gonna need that.” He picks up his nose and tries to fix it back on his face, but it slides off again, and the skin it touches blisters and bursts.

Eddie gags. He steps back, hitting the railing on the other side of the bridge.

“Honestly,” the man says. “But what can you do?” One of his eyes clouds over, drooping in the socket until it threatens to drop right out. He staggers a little, moving between Eddie and the way back to town.

Eddie covers his mouth, gagging again. There’s no way. He looks back, and all that’s behind this railing is a sheer drop down. The only other way is through the dark, covered part, he won’t go through there, that’s just asking for trouble.

When he looks back, the man is _right there_ in front of him, he reaches out and Eddie pulls away to the side, just short of contact as a few fingers fall off.

“Don’t you wanna meet my boyfriend?” the leper asks.

Eddie shakes his head. He feels trapped. He’s sure if he runs into the dark he won’t make it out, but he also isn’t sure if he can make it around the man.

“Oohh, poor useless little Eddie,” the leper all but croons. “It won’t do you any good to try and run from me, girly-boy, I’ll see you in your dreams.” There’s a sore oozing into his mouth and it makes spit and fluid fly when he speaks.

Eddie tries to run anyway. He goes for the covered part against his better judgment, and when he looks over his shoulder, he sees that Pennywise has dropped his pretense. His eyes are a bright yellow in the shadow, and his shape blocks out the light from the other side.

The clown grins in the dark. “Got a little mud on you, Eddie Bear. But – you wouldn’t want mommy to know how dirty you really are. How sick. Once it’s in your blood it’s too late.”

Eddie trips and face plants onto the pavement. He waits for the inevitable feel of arms and teeth and hot breath, and spit.

It doesn’t come.

Nothing does. He opens his eyes to see that he’s alone. He has the brief thought of a car crushing him and he drags himself to the side.

But there’s no car, and no one there.

He’s just… gone.

_See you in your dreams_.

Still, it’s a relief to be alone and he breaths a shaky sigh. His knee is throbbing and he knows he’s skinned it. His arm hurts too, and he really hopes he didn’t mess it up. He’s going to have to go in to the hospital for an X-ray for sure. He feels his eyes fill with tears again. He pulls himself to his feet and out of the tunnel. He looks over the side of the railing, watching for any sign of the clown. Nothing.

He looks back to the carving.

He hates it, suddenly. It, and whoever had the audacity to have those same initials and to fall in love.

“Eddie?” a voice says.

And he starts, scared for a moment that Henry Bowers has become back, or that Pennywise was only toying with him.

Mike is perched awkwardly on his bike on the road by the bridge.

“Mike!” Eddie can’t stop himself from sniffling. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so relieved to see the other boy. Mike gives him a once-over. And yeah, Eddie already knows he looks awful.

“Are you okay?” Mike asks. “You’re bleeding.”

Eddie looks to his bloodied knees, then back at the offending carving, and to the Barrens below. “No. I was – I was hiding. From Henry Bowers, and I fell.”

“Oh.” Mike looks around. “I didn’t see him on the way up. I think he’s gone now.”

“Okay,” Eddie says. He wipes at his face and probably smears blood and dirt on himself.

“Do you want me to walk you home?” Mike asks. “Or give you a ride? In case they come back?”

Eddie seriously thinks about saying no, he wants to be alone just as much as he desperately doesn’t want to be. He looks back to the railing and feels ashamed, as though Mike can pick the thoughts from the surface of his mind.

“Do you have a knife or something?” he asks. He has half a mind to scratch through the R + E that is slowly carving its way into him.

“Um.” Mike blinks. “What are you gonna do with it?” He produces a small knife from one of his pockets, and holds it out carefully, as though afraid Eddie is going to hurt himself with it.

In a way he is. “Nothing.”

Eddie crouches down and works at the wood carefully and awkwardly with his good hand.

“Do you… want help?” Mike asks, but he’s already turning away.

Eddie appreciates both gestures. “No.”

He doesn’t scratch out the other carving. It wouldn’t be fair to the other person, he decides.

Instead he makes his own carving. It doesn’t look very good. It takes a while to get the heart just right. Eddie doesn’t have the guts to put his own name, even his own letter up there, and he’s too afraid to write it all out, so instead he just puts a letter in a heart.

Part of it is spite. _Boyfriend_ – like maybe it’s a bad thing. _You should be more careful sweetie, they might have AIDS and you know how easily you could catch it_ – like you’re automatically sick if you have a boyfriend.

_It’s not what normal boys do, dear_.

Eddie thinks about how the really scary thing is people who are sick but don’t look like it. He hates the idea that he could be sick in some way and not know it until it’s too late. He hates that “normal” boys don’t want to hold hands with their friends. And that it’s wrong for Richie to climb in through his window just to check on him. Or for him to sit on Richie’s lap when there aren’t any other seats.

If his mother knew, she would be upset. It’s not what healthy boys do. Is there a test for this? A cure? A pill?

Why is it wrong? Is it wrong?

It doesn’t feel wrong. Not really. It feels good to know that someone cares that much. It makes Eddie feel safe, even when Richie teases him.

When he’s done, he taps Mike on the shoulder and gives him back the knife. To Mike’s credit his eyes don’t stray to look back at the railing. “Thank you.” Eddie sniffles.

“Yeah,” Mike says.

Eddie inhales. “Can you walk me home?”

“Of course. You want me to walk?” Mike asks. “Or you wanna ride in the basket like –” his eyes dart down to look at Eddie’s cast.

“We can walk,” Eddie says. “You don’t have to go the whole way.”

But Mike does. And halfway back, when his knee hurts too much, Mike helps Eddie climb up into the basket.

It makes Eddie feel better. They don’t say much, but that’s fine. Eddie feels safe there, and Mike lets him out at the street corner, so his mother won’t see them.

“You gonna be okay?” Mike asks.

“Yeah,” Eddie says. He hesitates, has to ask. “Did you see?”

He means, _did you see what I wrote?_

_Do you know?_

“No,” Mike says. Eddie frowns, and he wonders if that’s meant to answer both questions. Maybe Mike didn’t see, but he does know.

Mike pulls him into a hug, and Eddie tries to be mindful of his arm and how gross he is, but Mike holds him tight.

He actually feels better by the time he makes it home.

Until he goes inside and his mother catches sight of him and declares she never should have let him go out alone. And then he feels powerless again.

All through his bath, and the rest of the afternoon spent listening to his mother set up another appointment for him, and watching soap operas next to her he thinks about being weak. He’s not brave. He couldn’t even write out _Richie_.

And that’s probably a good thing. What would Richie think if he knew? He’d be grossed out. He’d look at Eddie like he was something small and disgusting. He’d call him sick.

Girly-boy.

Useless.

That night Eddie can’t sleep. When he finally dozes off, cheeks wet and heart broken, he dreams about skin slipping off to expose the rot underneath.


	5. A Bird's Eye View

Mike knows he shouldn’t be here. For one thing, his grandfather would kill him if he found out. And for another, the building is in pretty bad condition. But he’s lonely and sad and full of bad decisions right now. And who’s going to stop him anyway?

No one, that’s who.

Not his friends. Not Henry Bowers. And especially not the people in the store whispering about his parents like he isn’t there. He hates it when people do that. They didn’t know his parents. It makes shame curl in his gut, and a kind of fear that says that maybe _he_ didn’t know his parents either. _Maybe they’re right_ , it says, _maybe dad was crazy_. Maybe Mike is crazy too and it’s just taking a little longer. Maybe that’s why Pops doesn’t like it when he plays in town. He thinks Mike is going to do something.

Well, Mike is.

He stands in the broken-down doorway of the old apartment building, trying to will himself to either go in farther or turn back. But he can’t do either one and so he stands there.

The old brick walls seem to slant in, grey with age and smoke and water, and Mike worries that maybe they will cave in on him here. Maybe this is it. Wouldn’t that be fitting – for him to die in the same place he’d cheated death before.

The floor cracks beneath his feet when he shifts and the sound echoes distortedly along the walls. The building is open to the sky in some places, the second floor above is broken and the ceiling is collapsed in. The light from the summer sun casts shadows under the broken wood, and Mike imagines a dozen things waiting for him in the dark.

Part of him is afraid his parents’ bodies are still here somehow, still waiting for him to come back and help them like he should have before. It doesn’t matter how many times he tells himself he couldn’t really have helped; he still feels it.

Mike doesn’t know how long he stands there.

He was supposed to go right home after his delivery, and his grandfather will be mad at him but he can’t make himself leave just yet. He wants to do _something_ , absolve himself somehow, but he doesn’t know how. And he has a sneaking suspicion he won’t find what he’s looking for here.

There’s a footstep, loud in the old building. A kind of clicking step like a cane or claws or Mike doesn’t know what.

He looks for the source of the sound, but there doesn’t seem to be anything there. He can’t quite make out what’s in the shadows.

_Caw_!

It makes him jump, and then relief floods his system.

A crow. It’s just a crow.

Another click-step and the caw is repeated, louder.

He still can’t see the bird, but he wants to leave now. He’s been startled out of his thoughts, jarred out of place in his own head and he doesn’t like the way it feels.

He doesn’t particularly like crows.

Crows are carrion birds. They eat the dead. Crows would eat his parents’ bodies and the bodies of all the missing children. Crows would eat his eyes if he were left dead in the ditch.

Another click-step and the floor shakes a bit. Mike backs towards the door, and he realizes that he’s farther into the building than he’d originally thought, or even planned, to go. He hadn’t meant to move at all, and yet, somehow, he is deep inside the hallway. He doesn’t like that. It feels like he can’t trust his own mind.

And then he finally spots the crow. It’s massive, larger than he is by several times, and it sits on the broken ruins of the roof and stares down at him with its yellow eyes.

A bird that big wouldn’t need to wait until he was dead to start eating.

A bird that big can’t possibly exist.

Logically he knows this isn’t real, and he tells himself that. This is just that clown shaking him up to see what comes loose. He knows he’s being picked on for being alone and with no friends to protect him.

Of course, logic has never really bothered to apply itself to Pennywise, and Mike feels that there is a distinct lack of logic in this entire situation. Logically, this building should have been demolished after the fire.

He really wants to leave now.

The crow drops down, wings outspread, and lands only feet away from Mike.

It’s massive. Mike feels terror bolt through him and he turns, running the last few steps to the door and colliding with it when it doesn’t open easily under his touch. He hadn’t even known it could latch fully – and he had certainly left it open.

“Where ya going, Mikey?” A voice calls behind him.

He freezes in the doorway and doesn’t turn to look. He thinks about when he and Bill were in the sewer together. _There’s nothing there_ , he tells himself. But he only half believes it.

“Don’t leave so soon. You’re finally home,” it says. He hears it take another step.

 _This is ridiculous_ , he tells himself, _it’s a giant talking bird, I shouldn’t be afraid of it, I should be laughing at it_. But he isn’t laughing, although he does kind of want to. It would be a loud hysterical thing that he wouldn’t know how to stop, because he _is_ afraid. It doesn’t matter if he shouldn’t be, he’s alone, and he’s afraid.

Mike twists the doorknob and it turns but the door won’t open, and it doesn’t open even when he slams it hard enough to rattle against the hinges.

He’s trapped.

And he knows it’s still there behind him – can feel its presence like a pressure on his back. If he doesn’t turn around and face it, he won’t stand a chance, it will just pick him apart from behind and he’ll never see it coming.

And what if he does turn around? Is it better to see it coming for him? Can he fight it off? Beverly had managed to hurt it before. But he has no weapon, and no one there to back him up. It doesn’t feel like he stands much of a chance at all. He’s left with the question of whether it’s better to see what’s coming for him, or die ignorant.

He thinks about his grandfather. _Somebody else might make that choice for you_. He doesn’t want that, he really doesn’t. He doesn’t want to die alone, he has friends if he wants them. He doesn’t have to be an outsider. For the first time since their fight, he realizes that he’s made himself an outsider by choice. He knows the others would take him back if he just went to them.

He turns around, willing himself to face the clown.

And he’s alone. And oh, he doesn’t like that. If he can’t see the clown then where is he?

He scans the empty hall, but the shadows hold only dust.

He exhales.

“Hearing voices?”

The sound makes him jump. He can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from, but it feels close.

“Seeing things?” It comes again. “You might be more like your old man than you thought, Mikey-boy. Oughta get that checked out before you wake up one day to find your poor old grandfather buuuurrning.” He elongates the word dramatically.

“I’m not scared of you!” Mike says. _And I’m not scared of myself_ , he tells himself. He would never – could never –

“Oooh, I think you are,” the voice seems to come from all around him.

Mike rams into the door one more time, half turned back so he can see if there’s something behind him, and this time it gives way and he falls out onto the dirt outside. He scrambles to his feet, and tries hard not to be afraid. It’s a fight he doesn’t win.

He still doesn’t see anything in there, not that he wants to, but he can hear laughter.

“Come back any time,” the building calls to him. Or at least, the clown in the building. “Bring your friends!”

Mike turns away, hating that his back is turned on the old burnt down apartment and knowing that he’s being watched. The feeling of eyes on him continues even as he hops on his bike and pedals as fast as he can. He takes the long way, like maybe winding around will confuse it. He has the terrible thought that there’s a massive crow following him from the sky and watching him with its bird’s eye view, ready to swoop the moment he lets his guard down.

At some point the feeling stops and then so does he. He’s exhausted and sweaty and his hands shake a little. He skids to a halt, and hops off his bike, watching behind and then above him just in case. He feels like he’s run a marathon, adrenaline coursing hard through his veins and then suddenly leaving him drained and restless.

He half turns, pulling his bike, and collides with someone, nearly knocking them over and sending their bag to the ground.

“Hey!”

He knows that voice – Stan.

“Sorry!” Mike says. He reaches down to pick up Stan’s bag at the same time as Stan does and collides with him again, knocking him to the ground.

“Are you sure?” Stan asks, rubbing his head.

“I really didn’t mean – I’m sorry.” He picks up Stan’s bag and then holds out a hand to pull Stan up.

He takes it and Mike pulls him to his feet.

“Where are you going in such a hurry?” Stan asks. He takes his bag and slings it over one shoulder.

“Nowhere, I was just,” Mike hesitates. “Running.”

Stan frowns. “Bowers?”

“Something like that,” Mike says.

Stan’s expression shifts into something Mike can’t read. “Oh. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Mike says. “I think.”

Stan nods.

“Hey, uh, sorry I missed your Bar Mitzvah, my grandfather said – well, it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry,” Mike says. He really is sorry, if only because he knows it was important to his friend.

“Sure,” Stan says. He looks sad and it makes Mike’s heart hurt a bit. “It’s okay, it was mostly just … me reading stuff.”

“I’m still sorry,” Mike says. “I know it was important and –” _I shouldn’t have let It get in the way_? _I’m a bad friend_? _I needed to be alone as much as you needed not to be_? His hands are shaking when he grips the handlebars of his bike.

“It’s fine,” Stan says. And Mike can tell that’s a lie. He’ll have to find some way to fix things. Stan clears his throat. “Why do you have soot on you?”

“I –” Mike wipes at his forehead and his hand comes away dark with soot. He pictures it raining on him in the dust as he slammed into the door. “I went to the old house on Harris Avenue. Apartment building.” He doesn’t know why he tells him. He hadn’t been planning on telling anyone.

Stan exhales hard. “Shit. Why?”

“I don’t know. To – to prove something to myself I guess,” Mike says.

“And did you?” Stan asks. He doesn’t ask more than that, and Mike appreciates it.

“No,” Mike admits.

Stan nods. He looks down at his books, as though one of them might have an answer for both of them, but doesn’t say anything.

Mike sighs. “I gotta go. My granddad was expecting me a while ago. I’ll –”

He was on the verge of saying _see you tomorrow_.

“Yeah,” Stan says. “Sure.”

All the way home he thinks about courage and how he seems to lack it when it really matters. It’s a lonely ride, and there are no birds, but Mike feels himself unwinding like thread from a spool until he hits the town line. He thinks about dying alone. He thinks about leaving Derry forever and forever. He thinks about the crow and its yellow eyes. His parents. An empty spot on the Kissing Bridge where he could carve something if he really was brave enough.

He crosses the town line and something settles in his chest. He’s alone again, outside where he belongs, but his sanity feels brittle without something to prop itself up against. He likes who he got to be with his friends, and he misses that part of himself as much as he misses his friends themselves.

He feels incomplete in a way he can’t name, and he hates it.

His grandfather takes one look at him and tells him to take the rest of the day to himself. That’s much worse than if he’d yelled at Mike for being so late or made him clean up and get right back to work. Still, Mike takes it, and washes all the soot off, watching it swirl around in the bathtub. He goes to bed early, and makes sure his window is shut and locked. He dreams about crows gnawing on the bones of his parents and his friends.


	6. We Float

This is not how Stan wanted to celebrate after his Bar Mitzvah. He knows what his father is doing. He knows he’s being punished for what his mother called his ‘childish outburst’ earlier.

They’re treating him like a child.

It’s frustrating though, because Stan knows so much more about this town than either of them. And he doesn’t want to, because he’s starting to realize that he has a responsibility to it, to all of the missing kids and all of the dead ones. He didn’t ask for it. This is something actual adults should be dealing with. But instead they grow up and they stop believing and they don’t see. Stan wishes he didn’t see, but he does.

He’d behaved for the rest of the day. He’d given the sermon he had prepared, and he stuck to the script. His parents gave thanks to God for giving them the merit to raise their son to bar mitzvah. Stan wants to be mad at them, but it’s still emotional. Afterwards he gets presents, and they eat. His father rented out the whole community centre, and it’s surprisingly full. The room may as well be empty though.

Richie can’t stay for the party, but he gives Stan a present and a hug before he goes, and that almost makes up for it.

Stan doesn’t see any of his other friends. He tries to be angry about it, but instead he’s just sad.

Maybe they don’t know how much this means to him. Or maybe they just don’t care.

It passes as an awkward and stuffy afternoon. By the end of it, Stan feels a little bit more like it was for his father’s benefit than his own.

And he doesn’t exactly feel any more like a man than he did before. There’s no magical rush of knowledge for how to deal with new situations. No sudden flash of inspiration on how to make his dad take his bird watching more seriously. How to knit his friends back together. How to tell Richie to stop being a baby and just _say something_. It just feels like he has more responsibilities to be unprepared for.

He has to stay afterwards to help his parents and Mr. King clean up the community centre. It’s not much of a mess, really, and he’s grateful for that, but they still need to put away the extra tables and chairs, fold up the table cloths and dispose of the leftovers and garbage. More responsibility, and he’s sure his parents mean it as a bit of a punishment.

It takes the better part of three hours, and by the end of it, Stan is tired of being an adult. He wants to just to go to bed.

Instead he finds himself running things up and down the stairs to the community centre’s basement, until finally it’s just him and an armful of tablecloths and hangings on their way down to the closet under the stairs. His father and Mr. King are replacing the last table under the stage, and his mother is packing the cooler into their car, along with the last of Stanley’s presents.

He’s just putting the folded cloths on the top shelf when the power flickers.

He falters. There’s no storm or anything outside… He hops down from his stool, stepping out into the basement.

The light goes out entirely and Stan walks right into the door when he tries to find it. He raises a hand to his forehead.

Did his father forget about him? Are they leaving without him? Would they do that?

“Dad?” Stan calls. “I’m still down here!”

There’s no answer.

“Mom? Mr. King?” He tries. He kicks the door shut behind him and moves along the wall. If he just keeps to this side, the stairs will be on his left before long, and then he’ll be out.

There’s a footstep in the dark.

“Stanley,” a voice says.

“Who’s there?” Stan asks, and he hates that his voice shakes. So much for being a man now.

“Patrick,” it says, and Stan does recognize the voice.

It makes him recoil.

Patrick is _missing_.

And _missing_ means –

He is not hiding out in the community centre basement. Stan knows where he really is.

“Veronica,” another voice says, it sounds vaguely like a girl he used to know.

“No,” Stan says.

He has the distinct impression that they are close enough to touch him, even though he can’t see them, and he shudders. Does the basement connect to the sewers? It must.

He wonders distantly where it opens to the sewer system, how large the pipes are. Would Stan fit whole through it? Or would he be taken through bit by bit?

He slides along the wall, trying to move a little faster.

“Come back with us,” Patrick says. His voice is a hoarse whisper, broken like split skin.

Stan is barely breathing.

A gust of rotten air hits him in the face, and Stan shuts his eyes tight.

_No_ , he thinks, and forces his eyes open in the blackness. He can’t look away. It doesn’t matter if he can’t see it, he knows it’s there, and if he closes his eyes to it again he won’t be walking away, he knows that, can feel it in his bones.

He thinks again of that white light, that feeling of weightlessness. This isn’t that. This is dark and cold. This, he thinks, is the truth. This is what is behind the light. What will be left of him if it catches him.

Something cold brushes against his arm, clammy and slick, and Stan recoils, banging his head against the wall.

He staggers sideways.

“Stanley-boy,” a voice hisses.

He opens his mouth to say ‘no’, for all the good that would do, but nothing comes out. He keeps moving, and somewhere in the darkness ahead of him a blacker shadow moves, hulking and thin.

_Not her again_ , he thinks blindly.

His hand hits open air and he finds the bottom of the stairs with his heel. He has to turn his back on the darkness in order to make it up the stairs, he knows this, and he hates the idea with every fibre of his being.

He steels himself. He’s a man now, he tells himself. He has to be able to do things like this. What would his father say to know he’s afraid of the dark?

Well, not the dark.

The things _in_ the dark.

He hates that his father gets to remain blissfully ignorant of the plague in the town.

Stan swallows, and then he turns and runs up the stairs.

One wrong step, one fall, and he knows he’s done for. It’s straight back into the deadlights, and there’ll be no more parties, and no presents. No more terrible jokes from Richie. No extra candies from Ben. No stupid pictures from Bill. No more shared glances with Eddie, or secret smiles with Mike, or high fives with Bev, and no more of Mom’s brisket and her warm smile.

He almost, _almost_ thinks about how much nicer it might be to not have to worry, and then he thinks again of the cold and the dark and the decay that would be the sum total of his life. The empty spot in his group of friends.

He hears heavy breathing on his heels and he’s sure for a second that he won’t make it, but then he’s at the top of the stairs and he keeps going until he’s right out of the building and he barrels straight into Bill on his bike and almost knocks him right over.

Stan grabs onto Bill to stop them both from toppling to the ground.

Bill looks bewildered once they’ve decidedly not hit the pavement. “What happened? Are you o-okay?”

Stan takes a moment to calm down. He looks over his shoulder at the silent building.

“Yeah, I think so.” He steps back from Bill, letting go of him.

Bill follows his gaze. The building is dark and empty. His parents’ car idles at the curb just at the far side of the building. They really did leave him alone in there.

Bill frowns. “D-did I miss your party?”

“Yeah,” Stan says, and just like that he’s mad at Bill, and he lets himself sound as mad as he feels. “We’re finished cleaning up. You _really_ missed it.”

Bill looks miserable.

Good.

“I’m so-sorry,” he says, and it makes Stan soften a little. “I brought you a gift and – and a card.” He reaches around to pull his backpack off and pull out a small wrapped box with an envelope taped to it.

Stan takes it, holds it to his chest. “Thanks.”

He hesitates. He wants to say something. Are bygones bygones? Is that the adult thing to do here? He doesn’t know. He’s tired. And he’s tired of being mad at Bill. But he’s also afraid. And he knows that while he needs to forget this to make the pain in his chest go away, Bill needs to fight it. And he doesn’t know how he can reconcile what they both need so they can both be happy and still be friends.

He doesn’t know that he won’t keep running into that clown again and again until he finally can’t escape, but he also doesn’t want to increase the odds of adding his name to the list of the dead by forcing a confrontation.

He’s so damn tired of this.

“D-do you feel any different?” Bill asks.

It’s sort of a dumb question. “Not really,” Stan says. He considers for a moment. “Except I want to take a nap and I think I might need a cane to get around.”

Bill smiles. “I think you skipped a few steps.”

Stan smiles back. “Maybe.”

“I’m really s-sorry, Stan,” Bill says. He reaches out for a handshake, like he thinks maybe Stan really is an old man now.

Stan sighs. He gives Bill a quick, loose hug. He might still be mad at Bill for some things, but he does still love him. He turns towards his parents’ car. “I gotta go, my parents are waiting.”

Bill’s face falls. “O-okay. Um. See you around?”

Stan frowns, but he nods, and that’s enough for now.

That night, when he’s gone through all his gifts and a lecture from his father, he lies awake. Bill’s gift, a book on birdwatching that clearly took Bill a while to be able to buy, and Richie’s gift, a small pair of binoculars, sit on his bedside table. They stand out from the mess of other gifts that sit on his desk and in the living room downstairs. Those are all practical things, and things that Stan might need, but they aren’t things he _likes_. He looks at Bill’s book and the card where he’d tried to draw the bird that nests outside his house that Stan likes to look at; and the binoculars with Richie’s scribbled “For peeping” note, and he thinks, at least he likes these. It means a lot that his friends actually care about his dumb hobbies.

His stupid friends.

He wanted them to be there. And he hates that they’re the only ones who seem to know or care about what’s happening in Derry.

He just wants to be himself, and to enjoy summer and hang out with his friends. He doesn’t want to have to deal with monsters. But if today taught him anything, it’s that he can’t get away from those problems. Whether or not he wants to deal with it is irrelevant. If he doesn’t come for the clown, then the clown will come for him. He has a bad feeling about that.

He turns on his bedside lamp, and curls back into bed. The light on his eyelids is warm, and makes him think of weightlessness.

It would be so much easier to slide into those deadlights. Even knowing what’s behind them. But he wouldn’t be happy there. Not really. Not in the ways that mattered.

He can’t reconcile his fears with the idea of that weightless release. He turns off the light, and he falls asleep thinking about it, but he still dreams of nothing but light.


	7. Pictures In A Book

Bill feels helpless. He hates it.

It feels like when Georgie went missing and they looked all over town and there was nothing anywhere. There’s nothing he can do to help.

And he’s mad at his friends, because he _needs_ them and they won’t help. And they need him and they won’t let him help. He doesn’t blame them, but he’s still mad. They’re scared, and so is he, but they’re the only ones who can actually do something about any of this, and he doesn’t want anything to happen to anyone else.

Deep down he knows Richie is right. Georgie is gone, he has to be, but to admit that to himself would be to throw away the hope that things will be alright. That they _can_ be alright. It’s to put out the light at the end of the tunnel and throw away his dreams of a happy ending. He wants a happy ending. He needs it. He can’t stand the thought of the rest of his life being one meaningless day after another with no rhyme or reason to any of it; just blank, miserable days scattered among the rest. He can’t stand the thought of there being no narrative, no reason for Georgie to be gone and no reward for fighting the monster under the bed.

He needs Georgie to be okay. It’s the only ending he can take.

And he’s worried – about what will happen if they do nothing, and about what will happen if they try to fight. If they do nothing, will they all be picked off one by one?

Probably.

Will he have to pretend to search for Eddie while knowing that he’s worse than dead? Will he have to pretend not to know what happened to Richie, or Stan?

Will he read about Ben’s disappearance in the paper and think _I used to know him_ , or see Mike’s grandfather in town looking for his grandson and will he blame Bill for luring his son away? Will Beverly just disappear?

He hates this.

He wants them to be together again. He doesn’t want to lose anyone else.

There’s only so much time he can spend on his own before he goes mad. He tries to visit Eddie, but is turned away at the door. Eddie’s mom doesn’t trust him anymore. That’s fair. Eddie got hurt on his watch. And Richie hasn’t forgiven him for that yet either.

He still talks to Beverly, but it’s not the same. It’s not enough. And without the others to act as a buffer it’s awkward in a way he won’t define.

All he can do is wait, he supposes.

He spends a lot of time around town, his own home is depressing and full of memories and he hates it. He’d rather run the risk of encountering Henry Bowers, and that’s saying something. So he mostly rides his bike around. Once or twice he goes down to the Barrens, but he doesn’t like how it feels to be alone down there and he never stays long.

It’s a cloudy day, full of wind and the threat of a thunderstorm, but Bill still stops by the old ice cream parlor. Georgie always used to want ice cream when it was cloudy like this. He told Bill once that if they pretended it was hot then the sun would come back out.

He hasn’t been here since _before_. He can’t bring himself to go inside.

It’s then that he hears the yelling, and he knows those voices.

Goddamn Henry Bowers and his friends again.

Bill looks at the large windows of the shop.

No, they’d see him inside, and somehow he doesn’t think the man at the counter would be much help. So instead, he ducks into the alley, slides himself in beside the dumpster, and holds his breath.

He listens for a long moment, to the sounds of them talking loudly and banging on the windows before he hears the bell of the door as it opens.

Then there’s silence and he risks looking around the corner.

All at once he’s slammed into the wall of the alley. It hurts, and the breath is knocked out of him.

It’s Victor Criss, and Bill has a split second of absolute panic before Victor slams a hand over his mouth. All Bill can think is that no one will help him if he calls out anyway.

“Don’t fucking try it,” Victor says. He leans in, and Bill is expecting him to say something else, maybe yell in his ear, but he looks around the corner and then steps back. There’s something wild in his eyes that unsettles Bill.

“I’m gonna tell you something, just this once, okay? Don’t you dare say anything,” Victor threatens.

Bill nods because he has no choice.

“Good, okay,” Victor says. He adjusts his stance, leaning less on Bill. “Stay away from Henry.”

Bill makes a noise.

“He’s not – he’s fucking… He’s losing it. I think he’s going to do something he’ll really regret,” Victor says. He darts another look around the corner.

Bill is pretty sure that Henry has already done a lot of things that any sane person would regret.

Victor pushes him harder against the wall. “Just stay the fuck away. Got it?”

Bill nods, and Victor lets him go, stepping back.

“Wait here until they go,” Victor says. “And you didn’t hear this from me.”

“Okay,” Bill says weakly. “Wh-why are you –”

“It’s the shit he says he wants to do to you guys.” Victor shudders. “I don’t wanna be part of that.”

Bill wants to ask why Victor doesn’t just stop hanging out with Henry, but he doesn’t want to push his luck.

Instead he just nods, and stays put when Victor leaves.

His heart is pounding hard and he’s afraid to make a sound as he listens to Victor telling Henry he was taking a piss in the alley.

He listens to them walk away, and he stays there a long time trying to calm himself down.

Part of him doesn’t want to believe Victor, maybe this is all part of an elaborate prank, but the fear he’d seen in Victor’s eyes had been real. He’s sure of that.

If one of Henry’s own friends thinks he’s going to go too far, then… well, Bill doesn’t want to think about that.

There’s a sobbing noise from the back of the alley.

Bill freezes, debating whether or not to check it out.

It could be someone who needs his help.

Or it could be a trap. But Henry is long gone by now.

It comes again, and it sounds just familiar enough that he decides to check it out.

It’s dark in the back of the alley, and there’s a shape in the corner that Bill thinks looks like a crouched figure trying to hide. The sound comes again, and Bill thinks it sounds a lot like Eddie.

“E-eddie?” He calls out softly, making his way over cautiously. He doesn’t want to startle his friend. “Are you okay?”

How long has Eddie been here? Did Henry do something before he left? Was Eddie inside the building when Henry went in? No, that doesn’t seem right, Bill would have seen, would have heard –

The metal of a manhole shifts beneath his foot as he carefully moves closer. Bill crouches down low to be at eye level with his friend. He reaches out to lay a hand on his shoulder, and at the feeling startles him. It’s not a person at all, just a trash bag that tips over at his touch. 

Bill steps back, and the manhole cover moves under his foot, throwing him off balance. He hits the ground, and tries to crawl back from the manhole as the cover drags itself aside.

He braces himself, and manages to half stand.

A hand comes up out of the hole, and then another, and slowly something begins to pull itself out.

It’s pale and small, with deep bruises mottling the skin and strange growths that remind him of a rotten potato.

Bill scrapes his shin on the pavement, trying to keep his eyes on the thing as he backs away.

It gasps, the sound wet and loud in the alley.

Strangely, Bill thinks of the story he’d told Georgie about the little boy who lived in the walls. The one he’d gotten in trouble for telling because it had given his brother nightmares.

_That’s what he looks like_ , Bill thinks wildly. The little boy who lives in the walls. He’s small and gray because he never sees the sun. He’s rotten inside and out and late at night he reaches out from the wallpaper to pull you inside. He’s lonely. He only wants company.

“Will you play with me?” the boy asks.

Bill chokes on a sound.

“We can play forever. And forever. And forever.” His voice deepens on each word, slowly wrecked like a tape that’s been water-damaged.

“You’re not real,” Bill says. “I made you up.”

_It can’t hurt you_ , he’d told Georgie, when his brother had crawled into his bed later that night, too scared to sleep alone. _It’s just a story. Just like a picture in a book. It can’t hurt you because it isn’t real._

“You made me real,” the boy says. “It’s your fault.”

“N-no,” Bill says. “Because you’re not real.” And he wills himself to believe it.

The boy looks up at him, and his face is a ruin of rotten flesh. His eyes are sunken and gray, his teeth are blackened. He grins.

“We can play balloons,” the boy says. He begins to swell, bloated at first and then obscenely rounded until his skin is stretched so thin Bill can see the red beneath.

Bill staggers backwards, almost to the mouth of the alley, but he isn’t quite fast enough.

The boy bursts like a sore and hot blood splatters the alley. Bill feels it hit his face, and he shuts his eyes to it, feeling sick with fright and disgust.

When he opens his eyes again, Pennywise is there instead, leaning on the edge of the ground like he’s at a table.

“Something wrong, Buh-buh-buh –” He mimes clicking his jaw back into place. “Billy-boy?”

“N-n-no,” Bill says, and he realizes it sounds more like he’s answering the question than denying what’s happening.

The clown laughs at him.

Bill inhales sharply, afraid and angry. “I’ll –” He breaks off. He’ll what? He can’t do anything alone, can he? They both know it.

There’s a mosaic of blood covering the alley walls, fanned out from the manhole, spread across Bill’s face, and the clown is untouched by it all.

Bill wipes at his face.

“You’ll what? Kill me? I’m not real. Just a picture in a book,” the clown says mockingly. He moves as though he’s going to climb out, and Bill turns on his heel and runs from the alley, feeling like a coward.

He doesn’t stop until he hits the street, and then when he looks back Pennywise is still there, head resting against one hand. Waiting.

He shudders.

“Bill?”

Bill turns, startled.

It’s only Ben, an ice cream cone in one hand and a book in the other.

“Are you okay?” Ben asks. “Is that –”

“It’s n-not mine,” Bill says. He looks into the alley again, and it’s empty. “Wh-what are you…” Bill trails off, he doesn’t know what he wants to say. He sniffles, and it makes him realize he’s close to tears.

Ben looks him over and frowns. He sighs. “Come on.” He uses his book on Bill’s back to guide him into the ice cream parlor and to an empty table.

He comes back with an ice cream for Bill and then napkins, and he makes Bill sit there and eat ice cream while he wipes Bill’s face clean of blood.

“I got it all,” Ben tells him. “Are you gonna tell me what happened?”

Bill shakes his head and takes another bite out of his cone.

“Okay.” Ben shrugs. “Well, I gotta go. This book is due today,” he says, waving the book in his hand lamely.

“O-oh,” Bill says. “Okay. Thanks.”

“Yeah,” Ben says. He starts toward the door.

“W-w-wait. Uh. B-be careful. Bowers is out there, and he – he’s mad,” Bill says.

“He’s always mad,” Ben says. “But I’ll be careful. Take care of yourself, Bill.”

Bill nods.

He thinks that’s a strange thing to say. It sounds so mature, coming from Ben, and it makes him think that one day Ben will be a good man.

He wants to ask Ben to come back, to help him, but he doesn’t know how right now. And another part of him wants to be alone.

He needs to think about what he’s done. Has he done anything good for his friends? Are they all okay?

In the end he takes his bike by each of their places, their favourite hang outs, just to confirm to himself that they really are all okay.

He sees Ben make it to the library just fine.

He finds Beverly smoking out on her fire escape. She waves at him, but he can tell from her face that she’s been crying.

He spots Mike in the store, where he had a feeling he’d find him, writing something down on a clipboard and passing it to the man behind the counter. He doesn’t see Bill, but it’s enough for Bill to see him.

He sees Stan through a window at his house, reading in the living room, and looking for all the world like it’s the only thing that matters.

He finds both Richie and Eddie at Eddie’s house. Richie has climbed his way up onto the roof outside Eddie’s room, bike abandoned in the grass and both hands on the windowsill as he talks. Eddie is leaned out the window, his good hand holding on to the window frame and his cast resting against Richie’s chest like maybe he’s going to push him away. He can’t see Richie’s face, but Eddie looks happy, and soft in a way that Bill doesn’t see much. They don’t see him, and Bill suspects they wouldn’t notice him if he started singing and dancing. But it’s okay, because they’re both alive.

They’re all alive, they’re all okay. That’s what he wanted.

So why does he still feel miserable? He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s seen that none of his friends seem to need him the way he feels he needs them, or because he can’t stop thinking about the warmth of blood across his face.

He can’t handle the thought of losing one of them like –

He decides to talk to Bev soon. She will be able to help him, he’s sure of it. At the very least she’ll try. He wants – _needs_ – to do something about this.


	8. Epilogue

After the sewers, with the end of summer coming and the sun going down on their childhood, there’s a shift. There’s an end coming, and they know it. So while they can they cling to what they have, sentimental for a time and place that let them be something more, and to make the best of it while it’s still there.

They go to the quarry one last time. They get ice cream and sit around talking about nothing and everything; Henry Bowers, the vacation to Acadia Bill’s family is planning, Beverly’s aunt, which is the best horror movie. They go to see a movie and take up a whole row and eat way too much popcorn, and Richie spills his drink on Ben and stains his shirt blue. They spend a whole day in the clubhouse listening to music.

It’s strange.

There’s a fog hovering over Bill’s memory, carefully folding itself around his time in the sewers and wrapping itself tight around his heart, squeezing together the edges where Georgie had been ripped away. He starts to forget about the part of himself that learned to be brave with his friends instead of for them. He writes more and more, and it’s good. He’s not cocky, but he knows it’s good and he can admit it. The only thing he never manages to pin down is an ending. Maybe because he doesn’t know what that’s like, to have a concrete and good ending. All he knows is unfinished business and loss.

Beverly finds herself thinking less and less about being brave for herself. She goes back home and while she will be leaving to stay with her aunt, she doesn’t think about _why_. She catches herself wondering who it was that wrote the poem, _Your hair is winter fire_ , and she tells herself she knows the answer, and puts the thought away without ever putting a name to it. Sometimes she dreams. It’s always the same people, and they always die. She’s seen herself die, and she always remembers that something has happened, but never what, exactly. She’s afraid that one day she’ll see one of those faces, and she’ll know him, and then she’ll have to say, _I know how you die_.

Eddie picks up his fanny pack and puts it back on, and he lets his mother fuss over him. He doesn’t think about being brave or about not needing his pills or his inhaler. He’s delicate, his mother says, and he believes her. He doesn’t think about being close enough to touch Richie, or how warm he feels. He puts a bubble between himself and the world. He keeps himself safe, he doesn’t let himself live.

Ben doesn’t remember what it feels like to know the difference between solitude and loneliness. He sticks to himself, and stays quiet. He gets fit, because he can. It’s one more thing he can do for himself. It doesn’t make things easier. He keeps a folded page of his yearbook in his wallet, and even when he forgets who _Beverly Marsh_ is, he still thinks that his heart belongs with her, wherever she is.

Mike doesn’t remember everything, but he doesn’t forget. He keeps hold of the names, even when their faces fade from his mind. He has a photo framed on his desk. _Lucky Seven_. Sometimes he tries to put each name to a face, but it’s hard. He stops looking at the photo, and he thinks that maybe Derry isn’t so bad. Not really. At the same time he thinks there isn’t a worse place in the world. But he can’t leave, not yet. He knows that. He has to wait, someone does, and it may as well be him.

Richie doesn’t think about other boys, and he doesn’t think about whether or not it’s okay to be himself. He tells dirtier jokes, but they always seem pointless. It’s supposed to annoy someone specific, and he can’t remember who, but every time he tells a ‘your mama’ joke he looks for that reaction, that face. It’s never the right one. He makes stupid decisions because he can’t rely on a friend’s opinions. He stops writing his own material.

Stan is glad to feel it slipping away. He welcomes forgetfulness and prays that it will take it all away. It doesn’t. Not fully. There’s a shadow over his childhood, and he knows something bad happened. He remembers teeth. And yelling. He remembers bright, warm lights. Sometimes he lets himself float in water and imagines that’s what it feels like. He thinks about the friends he can’t quite remember. Sometimes he dreams too. In his dreams he always sees a choice. He always chooses wrong and someone dies. It feels like he can’t win and he never will.

They separate, and they go about their lives and grow up but not apart, not really. There’s always something calling from the back of their minds, and sooner or later they will have to answer it.


End file.
